[Solved] Please restart norden.heliohost.us (vps15)

[jnorden]

Hi Kyrdos,

Please either reboot my vps, or log in and re-start the networking.

--------

Last Sept, there was a dns problem (below), and you added an IPv6 address for me.  I was trying to configure it --- thought I was being careful and tried to use an alias device, ens192:0 so I could use ifup and ifdown without getting locked out.  But I noticed that ifconfig still said "up" after running 'ifdown ens192:0', so I tried 'ip link set ens192:0 down' and immediately realized that would actually turn off the ethernet :-(.

Much less urgent than re-booting - can you give me any info on how to configure the IPv6?  I think I just need to add a new section to /etc/network/interfaces.  It seems like the netmask is usually 64 bits, so I added
   address 2001:470:1:1ee::15/64
But I have no idea how to figure out what the gateway should be.  I tried a link-local address which was suggested on a web page I came across:
  gateway fe80::1
but it didn't seem to work.

Thanks!

-Jeff Norden

 

 

[Kairion]

Hi @jnorden,

About setting up IPv6, you can add the following stanza into your /etc/network/interfaces:

iface eth0 inet6 static
	address 2001:470:1:1ee::15
	netmask 64
	gateway 2001:470:1:1ee::1
	autoconf 0
	dns-nameservers 2001:4860:4860::8844 2001:4860:4860::8888

And then running the following command to validate your network settings:

sudo systemctl restart networking

Finally, just reboot your server:

reboot

 

21 minutes ago, jnorden said:

Please either reboot my vps, or log in and re-start the networking.

I am escalating your request to our root admins for fulfilling.

[Krydos]

You were so close! Your forgot to set up an IPv6 gateway. The IPv6 address was added correctly, but without the correct gateway it has no idea where to send or receive the data from. The gateway for your IPv6 is 2001:470:1:1ee::1. I finished setting up IPv6 for you, and tested it.

One other thing I'd like to mention is it looks like you have SSH set up to only allow connections from certain IP ranges which is a pretty great improvement in the default security, but I added an additional rule to allow SSH connections from HelioHost in case you need support again in the future. We only connect to user's VPS if they ask us to, and there are only currently 2 VPS admins with the security clearance to access your VPS, Yashrs and myself, but we may train more admins in the future as we get more and more VPS to provide support for. You're welcome to remove the firewall rule if you want, and if you need support Yash and I can gain root access in a slower method that requires rebooting your VPS several times, but this firewall rule will save us quite a bit of time if you need help with something. We respect the privacy of our customers and only check things out if there is obvious reason to suspect that the user is violating our terms of service, the VPS has been hacked and the hacker is violating our terms of service, or if the customer requests help with something.

Anyways, let us know if you need help with anything else.

[Krydos]

2 hours ago, Kairion said:

iface eth0 inet6 static
	address 2001:470:1:1ee::15
	netmask 64
	gateway 2001:470:1:1ee::1
	autoconf 0
	dns-nameservers 2001:4860:4860::8844 2001:4860:4860::8888

This is so close to being correct too. VMware virtual network devices are never named eth0 though. Generally our VPS use the interface ens160, but I've also seen ens192 depending on the version of VMware that the server is running. The best way to be sure of the interface device is to run the command ip addr

[jnorden]

As usual, wow!  Heliohost definitely has the fastest, most responsive customer
service of any tech-related organization that I've ever dealt with!
---
It's no problem having an additional firewall ssh rule for you to use for
administration.  Shortly after I set up the vps, I noticed a huge number of
(fortunately unsuccessful) ssh login attempts from all over the world.  That's
why I set up the firewall.  There is also an alternate ssh port that I use when
I'm away from home.  I was surprised at how high a port number I needed to use
before scanners failed to find it.
---
I knew that setting the gateway was probably the problem, but a google search
didn't seem to give any consistent advice on how to set it.  A few pages
suggested using the link-local address, but that doesn't work with heliohost.
Now that I look at it, setting the last 64-bits to 0:0:0:1 makes sense.

It seems that systemctl can't/won't restart the network on my vps.  This is
fine with me, the less stuff under systemd's control the better. I used
  'ifdown ens192; ifup ens192'
a couple of times, but worried that ifdown might succeed followed by ifup
failing.  So, I switched to using ens192:0, which seemed safer, and was going
to remove the :0 once it was working.  When I noticed that 'ifdown ens192:0'
left the interface still flagged as 'up', I looked up a few more things and
then tried the 'ip link set' command.  It occurred to me that this was a bad
idea just as I was pressing the 'enter' key, but it was too late.  Initially,
you wouldn't have been able to ssh in, since the ethernet interface was off.
But the firewall hole will help if there is some other request that I have in
the future.

Thanks again!
-Jeff